This invention relates to the field of surgical appliances, and in particular to a gastrostomy tube penetrating the abdominal and stomach walls for feeding a patient by delivery of nourishment into the stomach directly.
Some patients, because of injury, malignancy, birth defects, or nerve damage, may not be able to swallow or otherwise accept nourishment by normal feeding. Many if not most of these patients are subject to such disabilities over an extended period of time so that any installed feeding tube must be able to remain in place during that period of time.
Until some time ago these patients were fed through tubes passing through the nasal passageways or the oral cavities. These procedures were time consuming for medical personnel because the tubes had to be removed and replaced frequently. They were also very uncomfortable for the patients. In addition, the presence of such tubes quite often interfered with other procedures or activities of the patient.
More recently, medical practitioners have resorted to the use of feeding tubes implanted by surgery through the abdominal wall with the end of the tubes terminating within the stomach.
In one such arrangement commonly in use, the outside or proximate end of the tube is capped. When it is time to feed the patient, the cap is removed and the nutrients are flowed under regulation through the tube into the stomach or infused around the clock. While this arrangement has proven to be the most satisfactory approach to date, it does suffer some serious drawbacks.
The procedure to implant such a gastrostomy or feeding tube is quite complex. A gastroscope is introduced through the mouth of the patient into the stomach and a snare is passed through the gastroscope into the stomach. A catheter is implanted surgically through the abdominal wall into the stomach to be surrounded by the snare. A silk suture is passed through the catheter and the snare is tightened around the suture and withdrawn along with the gastroscope. The gastrostomy tube is then pulled through the mouth, esophagus, stomach and out through the abdominal wall. This procedure is described with greater detail in "Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy: a Nonoperative technique for feeding gastrostomy" by Ponsky et al, Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, Vol. 21, No. 1, 1981. When properly placed, the end of the feeding tube outside of the patient is stitched in place to the chest of the patient with the other end of the feeding tube remaining extended into and terminating within the stomach where a balloon may be employed to restrict movement of the feeding tube.
From the description above it is seen that the procedure for installing the feeding tube is very complex. In addition, over a period of time the stitches tend to loosen and furthermore, the arrangement is prone to infection.
Other devices relating to this type of medical apparatus analogous to this invention are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,039,468, 3,253,594, 4,077,412, 4,555,242, and 4,698,056. There is no teaching or suggestion of the present invention in the prior art as exemplified by the preceding patents.